jenny and nate's wedding

jen was GORGEOUS, and SO calm, so herself, and had such a blast. and nate was handsome and cheerful and in love. it was a joy and an honor to be in their wedding. kudos to my sweet hubby who faithfully followed us around all day and took some awesome pictures.

"you can do it!"

nate totally lost it when she came down the aisle. hoorah for weeping grooms!

mames, i was thrilled beyond words to see you! i love you!

dan the man was once jenny's employer...and angie's, and kelly's, and mine, and joe's, and kat's! he's our favorite...he gives us free movie tickets. :)

nate and jen, we love you both so much. we cherish you with all our hearts. thank you for giving this spot in your day.

happy birthday, granma!

we love you!!

domestic additions

october roses (they're bloomin' in the rain!)

new duvet cover and shams from IKEA! never thought i'd do orange, but i'm digging it. :0) it kinda brightens up the place. and, for $40!

soul food

from the reading for tuesday, october 16 and wednesday, october 17:

from psalm 13:

"But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me."


from psalm 5:

"For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you."

"But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield."


from Luke 12:

"one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."


from psalm 113:

"He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!"

book success

because blogger isn't cool like xanga, with its "currently reading" feature, i'm going to start such a feature on my own.

the point of telling people what you've been reading is to spread the word about a good book. i love that. i can't number how many times i've seen somebody's "currently reading" icon and gone off to amazon to read about it. and especially in the Christian community, we can be shamelessly recommending good reads to eachother as part of our job to encourage and sharpen.

not that i think what i read will automatically be on your top 10 must-reads list, but oftentimes, what one is reading at the moment is what one is going through, meditating on, excited about, loving, etc. it speaks about the person's heart. i also love this about book lists. if you put it in context, you can get to know one well by what one reads, and that's just cool.

this week, i finished reading A City in Winter: A Queen's Tale, a fiction about a ten year old girl who discovers her royal heritage has been stolen by the Usurper, and her quest is to reclaim it. my sister-in-law recommend it, and she knows and loves books. it is a kid book, of sorts, but fully capable of keeping an grown up's attention. it is enchantingly written, pregnant with unique, poignant vocabulary, and beautifully illustrated by Chris Van Alsburg (who did Polar Bear Express among other books). you can get it Amazon for $0.49!

i am also (still) in the midst of the third work in Lewis' space trilogy That Hideous Strength, though i think "space trilogy" is the wrong nomenclature for it. it is very other-worldy in some senses, but it's far different from what i expected simply because this kind of title gives it a stereotype (i was thinking Star Wars type literature). it does have some scary weirdensses to it that don't accompany my "bed-time" reading very well, which is why i only read it during the day, and which is why i haven't finished it yet :). but it is amazingly written, so fun, so telling of Modernity, and so rich.

cookbook of the month

i love to cook, and i cook a ton, but i don't generally follow a recipe. i just make stuff up as i go along, mostly due to the fact that i don't plan ahead enough to have all the "right" ingredients. thus, i have an overwhelming library of suberb cookbooks whose spines have been too infrequently cracked. but, i have come to the point where i want to follow a recipe. i want to know what someone else has discovered. i want to dig into the beauty of God's foody world.

so, i am striving to begin a tradition for the carlson household. i have instituted a cookbook of the month for our household. this is serious business. like the stack of "must-reads" i have in my head, i have a quiver full of cookbooks i am determined to not take for granted. inside the beautiful covers hides delectable combinations of edible organics that God has delighted in passing down to us through what is called a recipe. i have let this blessing sit on my shelf for far too long, and i mean not to let it sit any longer.

thus, i have devised a plan. a cookbook of the month. here's how it would go: on the first of every month, i pull down a cookbook, dog ear all the recipes that sound yummy, and then work through those for as i can. it does not mean that i cannot cook anything else but what is in that book, and it doesn't mean that i have to get through all that i've dog-eared. but, it will give me a good goal to get to know each book, to try new foods according to what each book offers for that season.

for october, the book has been Perfect Recipes for Having People Over, by Pam Anderson. though the choosing of the book was "accidental", it has proved to be providential, as it seems we have had more folks squeezing around our table in the last month than we've had in the last two years combined! and what a glory.

the first thing i made from it was a Red Chicken Chili, whose secret ingredient was chocolate. :) having chocolate in there inspired me toward other odd additions, including cinnamon, and it ended up being pretty yummy. last night, for my sister in law and her family, i made Spice Cake, the second of five variations on her recipe for simple yellow cake. for those who need details, i highly recommend this book. for most every recipe, she's got a number of varational recipes to change it up a bit, plus what to serve with it, at what kind of event to serve it, how one can make it ahead, and start-to-finish menu combinations.

the following are recipes i have dog-eared for october:

1. Bake Ahead Pizza for a Crowd (white sauce version)
2. Really Good Lasagna
3. Simple Cassoulet
4. Stew (Indain variation or Moroccan variation)
5. Rosemary-Scented Roast Pork Loin stuffed with Roasted Garlic, Dried Apricots, and Cranberries with Port Wine Sauce
6. Orange Cream Cheese Strata with Cranberries and Walnuts
7. Cheddar Puffs with Scallions and Cayenne
8. Easy Butternut Squash Ravioli with Rosemary Oil
9. Creamy Winter Squash Soup with Cinnamon, Ginger, and Clove
10. Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Saffron and Ginger
11. Orange-Glazed Asparagus
12. Roasted Red Potatoes
13. Simple Scones
14. Roasted Peaches (or Pears) with Caramel Sauce and Toasted Almonds

like i said, my goal is not to kill myself trying to make all these things, but rather to have a goal, and then to get cooking. i don't know what my cookbook for november will be yet, but i'm excited to make use of my treasury.

so here's my charge to our household and to those lovely persons reading this: delight in the Lord with your taste buds. discover how much He loves cinnamon, butternut sqaush, brussel sprouts, pears, bittersweet chocolate. glorify God by noticing the colors of your food (if there aren't any colors, something's wrong, and it's time to visit the produce aisle of your grocery). :)

soul food

this reading wasn't from my lectionary, but these texts came from the readings that will be in our church service this coming Sunday. typing out scriptures for the bulletin every week really gives me an opportunity to meditate on them, and this week a couple really struck me. i italicize the pungent words, phrases that wake my heart and mind.

from psalm 34

"Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed."

and again from psalm 34

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing."

from Micah 6:

"With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

this is the King we serve, and how glorious!

soup bravery

okay, i've really got to work on my culinary photography. these pictures, unfortunately, don't look very appetizing. but i just created a super yummy recipe for chicken soup. i kicked it up a notch, to put in it emeril's words.

i don't even know what to call it...creamy chicken soup with tortellini and nutmeg might be a nice descriptive title...maybe too descriptive. at any rate, it came out extremely tasty, and so here's the recipe, before i forget. i started from true scratch, so measurments are approximate. if you want to try making it, just use your judgement and own personal tastes on the amount of spices, veggies, etc.

creamy chicken soup with tortellini and nutmeg

2 chicken breasts
2 Tbl oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
3 stalks celery, diced
1 C. baby carrots, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
4-5 small potatoes (mix of red and yellow), diced
1 tsp. sage
1 tsp. rosemary
1 tsp. thyme
1 Quart chicken stock (or more as needed)
2 C. mini cheese tortellinis
1 C. half and half (or more as needed), plus 1/2 C. heavy cream
1/2 to 1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 grated parmesan


Heat oil on medium in bottom of soup pot. Add chicken, diced into bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle in salt, pepper, and garlic powder. When chicken is halfway done, add potatoes, then carrots, celery, and onion. Add sage, rosemary, and thyme. Cook another 5 minutes or so, till chicken is done and veggies are getting softer, stirring often. Add chicken stock and simmer for 10 minutes with lid on. Meanwhile, bring a small pot of water to boil. Add tortellini and cook until almost done, about 10 minutes. Drain water and add tortellini to soup. Pour half and half and cream into a liquid measuring cup and heat in microwave until just warm (this prevents curdling when poured into hot liquid), and pour into soup. Add nutmeg (as desired) and parmesan and stir. Let simmer 5 more minutes, and serve.

day with jane

every year, for as long as i can remember, we spend a day with jane.

jane and my mom were in kindergarten together, and have been friends ever since. some years, we go to her house and shop at the Gilroy Outlets. :) some years, she comes our way and we head for the ocean. but this year, it was downtown santa cruz, Pacific Garden Mall. we had lunch at a sidewalk cafe, walked Pacific, and ended the day at the Cat, and joe took our picture. i don't think we have a single picture from any of our "jane day's", so this was a monumental occasion.

love you, jane!

mom and i gave jane a concert...a little "heart and soul." (i generally hate that song, but jane, being the persuasive, exhuberant soul that she is, had us pull it out for old-time's sake).

dinner with the president

yep, we had dinner with the president and his wife...of New Saint Andrews. he used to be our Dean, and a very effective one at that. :) but, on account of our class' tremendous support and well-designed campaigning, he was elected President and has been ever since. :)

we had dinner at Paradise Beach Grill, which is one of our favs in the Capitola Esplanade. aside from the first fifteen minutes of brain-blasting Bob Marley music (typical down here, but not typical for this restaurant), we had a pleasant feast. and, forgetting to take a picture there, we had to take one when we dropped them off at their car...so that disgustingly colored wall behind them is the dumpster at Denny's. yah, and so...memorable.

we were so blessed to see you, Dr. and Mrs. Atwood! thanks for catching us up on your life and all the happenings of moscow. we cherish you.

domestic additions

i made this wreath with my mom the other day...everything 50% off at Beverlys!

evidence of death

that's what autumn is, really.

but it's a beautiful, divinely created, God-glorifying evidence.

in a geographical location dominated by evergreens, it's a treat to see a tree that actually exhibits the current season. (i always think of moscow, idaho for this reason...streets lined with myraids of autumn-happy trees). but there's a (note: 1, uno, single, solitary) maple decorating the house directly across from us that is doing just that, and i confess that i somehow manage to have covetous feelings for that tree. don't know how it's possible to want someone else's tree, but there it is. :)

no, i don't really want to transplant that tree into my yard, not really. i just really enjoy looking at it. it smiles at us through our kitchen window, and i say a little prayer for it, that it might be a strong and glorious tree for Christ, blessing the neighborhood with its brilliance.

this season reminds me how God works in our life...how, in Christ, we constantly are showing evidences of death, the old man being put to death daily, bearing that cross. and this death is beautiful in God's eyes, because He knows what comes next... and He's preparing the Banquet. this is the death that makes way for radiant, exhuberant Life.



the pictures don't do it justice...one of these days i'm going to walk over there and get a close up of those leaves.